


Through Toil

by Sheeana



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Fix-It, Happy Ending, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-24
Updated: 2017-04-24
Packaged: 2018-10-23 07:46:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10715217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheeana/pseuds/Sheeana
Summary: Shepard makes a different choice. Then she and Garrus find their way, while the galaxy rebuilds around them.





	Through Toil

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sumi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sumi/gifts).



"Let's get this over with," she says, gritting her teeth.

"Do what you must," it replies.

It gives Shepard three choices and then unleashes her upon an unsuspecting galaxy. 

She's never been the right person to make these decisions; there's never been anyone else. _Someone else might have gotten it wrong._

Synthesis. The union of synthetics and organics. The end of the endless cycle of death and destruction. The beginning of a utopian age of symbiosis.

It sounds perfect.

It sounds wrong.

She's never really believed in fate, but she has faith - in the people she's trusted, the people who have followed her into hell and back. Even the ones who are gone. Especially the ones who are gone. They're always with her, giving her strength when she falters and reminding her what's really at stake. 

She remembers something Mordin once said, his voice echoing in her head like he's standing right beside her – no limitations, no advancement. If she merges organic and synthetic life, then there won't be anything left to strive for. Perfection before anyone is ready for it. And who knows, maybe it's inevitable that someday they'll get there, but today is not that day. The process is as important as the result, Legion told her. She didn't understand then. She understands now.

She's not a god. She can't control the Reapers.

So there's only one choice. That's how it always is, in the end. Voices clamoring all around her, and it all boils down to something simple. They can live without the relays. They can rebuild them, eventually. Even if it takes ten thousand years, even if it wipes out all synthetic life, at least someone will have a future. EDI would understand, she thinks. EDI would gladly _risk non-functionality_ to save the crew of the Normandy.

She squares her shoulders – as much as she still can – and lifts her gun.

But then she thinks about a friend she's already lost to this damned war. About a three hundred year old question that finally received an answer. She thinks of the geth teaching the quarians to farm Rannoch's soil. Of forgiveness given where it wasn't earned. 

She can't kill Legion's people.

The thought hits her with all the kinetic force of a bullet. All the options are right, all of them would end the cycle, but they're all _wrong_ , too. She can't commit genocide on the word of the Reaper intelligence. All those months she spent patiently teaching Garrus that _how_ you do something matters – she can't throw those away like they don’t matter. What is she, if she's so willing to discard everything everyone has fought for?

This is how it is, then. She's made so many choices for so many people. She's saved people, killed people, built impossible bridges and mended ancient wounds. Brought people together. But this one, final choice – it isn't hers to make. 

It's theirs. Everyone who brought her here. Everyone who followed. Everyone who gave their lives for it. And the choice they made, resoundingly, as one, was defiance in the face of impossibility.

So she doesn't fling herself into the light. She doesn't burn away into dust to give the last of herself to the galaxy. She doesn't seize control of the Reapers. She doesn't do whatever it takes. 

The Catalyst looks at her. "You have to choose," he – it – says.

Briefly, she considers threatening it, raging against the _unfairness_ that has been inflicted upon the galaxy and its people right down to her last breath. In the end, she says nothing to it. She's hurt. She's tired. She's probably dying. She's long past being able to intimidate anyone or anything.

It's speaking to her, pleading with her to make a choice.

She ignores it. 

_Coward_ , she accuses silently, but it's too late. Her mind is made up. There has to be a better way. There's always a better way.

"Hackett," she says, into the comms she desperately, foolishly hopes are still working. She’s weary beyond words, but she can't stop now. She isn't done yet.

"Shepard- ... Catalyst? ... hold out as long as... can, but ... dying- ... won’t- ... much longer-"

"Admiral Hackett, can you hear me?"

"Shepard," his voice comes, more clearly. "We're taking heavy losses. I’m not sure how much longer we can sustain our defense lines without losing formation. What's the situation? Is the Catalyst ready to fire?"

"Sir, the Catalyst is not what we-" She glances at the flickering hologram of the child. She thinks about Akuze, about how she refused to believe there was any chance she wouldn't make it out alive. She thinks about the thin line between hope and the illusion of it. "We're... gonna need some more time, sir."

"That's time we don't have, Shepard."

"Patch me through to the fleet," she says, mustering everything she has left, every last shred of herself that she hasn't already given.

"... Patching you through."

She straightens her back and rises to her full height, because even if she's a coward, even if this doesn't work and every single person she's brought to this fight is about to die here, she's – they're – not going to take this lying down. 

"Listen up," she says. "The Catalyst isn't ready to fire yet, so we're gonna have to do this the old-fashioned way. The Reapers think that we can't work together, that it's inevitable that we'll destroy each other. They're wrong. I watched all of you set aside your differences and come together for the sake of the galaxy. I watched a salarian scientist give his life to cure the genophage. I watched the krogan and the turians fight as allies to take back Palaven. I watched the quarians make peace with the geth, and then I watched them protect their homeworld together. I'm not saying we're perfect. We've made mistakes and if any of us survive this, we'll make more. But we've learned from them, and we've made it this far. By coming here today, all of us, together, we've done the impossible. So now you have to fight. Fight for your children. For your home. For your future. For all the civilizations who came before us. Maybe we can't survive, but if we die here, fighting side-by-side to the last _soul_ , then we've already won." 

Something bright is flickering, over near the hologram that looks like the boy she couldn't save. A familiar voice is saying something, but she's not really listening anymore.

"Catalyst Protocol activated. Initiating command sequence. 5... 4... 3..." So familiar, but she can't quite place it, isn't paying much attention. She's dropping her pistol, stumbling over to the edge of the platform. She has nothing left to give and no more words left to say.

As the sound over her comms dies away into an indistinct crackling, she sinks down to her knees. She presses her hand and then her forehead against the window. There's a battle raging below, but she looks past it, to the curve of the Earth stretching out beneath her. To that bright blue line against the endless dark.

She was born on a ship. Her earliest memories are confined to metal corridors and surrounded on all sides by the darkness of space. All her life she's barely set foot on solid ground. It seems fitting, that she'll die up here – but she looks out over the Earth, over humanity's birthplace and its last stand, and she thinks Anderson was right: it is quite a view.

The world ends in a flash of white light.

\---

A bright pulse of light explodes outward from the Crucible. It passes over the Reapers and leaves them seemingly unscathed. It overtakes the fleet, turian and asari and human and geth and quarian and mercenary ships alike. It blankets the moon and then the Earth, bathing the ground troops in its harsh glow. Never slowing, it stretches out into the solar system, reaching outward, hitting the relay. It spills out into the galaxy.

On the ground, husks rush forward, unchecked. Brutes smash their way through ground forces. Capital ships close on the fleet scattered across and around Earth’s upper atmosphere. Nothing stops. Nothing ends. The battle rages on.

Urdnot Wrex hauls himself up onto the roof of a burned-out building in this ruined city of Earth and looks out over the devastation. Looming nearby is the massive outline of one of the Reaper destroyers. Every few seconds, the horizon lights up red.

He's no fool. The war is over. The truth is, it's been over for a long time, and Shepard has just been too stubborn to admit it. Maybe no one else gets it, but he knows what he heard in her voice when it came crackling over the comms, calling them all to arms. They're not winning this. They're going down fighting.

If that's how it's going to be, well, he's happy to oblige.

"You heard her!" he roars, defiant to the very end. "Get your sorry asses in gear! Show our enemies the fury of the krogan!"

In a last, hopeless gesture, he seizes control of a nearby mounted gun and fires an explosive round at the Reaper itself.

When it punches through the Reaper's hull like it's just bare metal, no kinetic barriers to stop it, he's as astonished as anyone. But he doesn't let surprise deter him.

"Krogan! With me!” he shouts. With a massive heave of effort, he tears the mounted weapon off its bearings and, with renewed ferocity, throws himself back into the fight. His people pour down behind him, every one of them roaring the battle cries of their ancestors.

Somewhere far above, turian frigates and Alliance dreadnoughts and geth fighters turn their guns on Reaper capital ships. With their shields failing, all it takes is a single well-placed shot. The combined might of the galaxy bears down upon the Reapers with a vengeance.

By the end, the atmosphere is littered with debris and choked with dust. Destroyed Reaper and allied ships rain down upon the Earth, bright streaks of fire painted across the sky. Reaper ground troops find nowhere to retreat. Ruthless in its revenge, the galaxy gives no quarter.

And then, finally, in a scene that will be endlessly repeated and embellished in a thousand vids, the sun rises triumphant over the devastation.

\---

_I should be dead_ , is Shepard's first lucid thought upon waking. Everyone should be dead, but she should be especially dead.

She's not, though. The dull pain lancing down her side and along her arm is enough to tell her she's still very much alive. Anderson used to tell her that pain is a reminder: as long as you can feel it, you know you're still kicking.

Anderson. It hits her, worse than her side, worse than her arm. _You did good, child. You did good..._

There's a different voice somewhere, a real voice, quiet and raw like the speaker knows that no one is listening. "... so then Wrex said, Vakarian, you slippery turian bastard, I’ll get you for this. And I said to name the time and the place and I’d be happy to send Shepard to fight for my honor. You're practically a krogan anyway, with all the shouting and the headbutting and the shotguns-"

"Garrus?" she says – mostly croaks. Her throat is so dry the sound can barely make it out.

"... Shepard. Thank the Spirits," he breathes. There's such an undercurrent of _relief_ in his voice that all she can do is reach out blindly for his hand, until he finds hers and grips it tightly. He brings a glass to her lips and she sips at the water, glancing up and finding him watching her with an expression she can't read.

"Nice to see you too, Vakarian," she murmurs. She tries to lift her other arm and it won't move. When she glances down, she sees it's been immobilized. Broken in the aftermath of the Crucible, probably. "How long...?"

"Three weeks." His voice is tight.

"The Reapers?"

"Dead. Mostly. There's still some fighting, but the fleets are taking care of it. Might be years before it's all cleaned up, though. Whatever you did up there, Shepard, it worked. Gave us a shot and we took it." The edge to his voice is getting sharper and sharper. If she doesn't do anything, pretty soon she'll be at risk of cutting herself on it.

"Garrus-"

And just like that, the tension breaks. "I gave you an order," he snaps.

"I did what I had to do. You know that."

"You didn’t _have to_ leave me behind."

"You were hurt. It was bad. Calling for an evac was the right move."

"The right move for you to go in blind? With no one watching your six? They pulled you out of there barely breathing, you know that? It was touch and go for a week, and all I could do was _sit here_ -"

"What would you have done, if it was me? If I dragged you up there with me, you would have died, Garrus. And I-" Her throat suddenly feels thick, like something’s lodged inside it. "I couldn't lose you, too. So many names on that damn wall already. I needed to know there was still one good thing left out there. Just... one good thing." She hates to throw his own words back in his face, but every one of them is true.

His shoulders slump as he leans forward. There's a long pause while he gathers himself. "... Don't ever do that again," he says finally. "I said it before, but I mean it this time, Shepard. Never again. If you can't promise me that then do me a favor and let me down easy. Tell me to walk away, and I will. And do it right now, because I can’t handle losing you a third time."

"Garrus, you know I... can’t promise that," she admits. When he looks like he's about to snarl at her, she holds up her (relatively) uninjured hand to quiet him. "What I can promise is this: where I go, you go. No matter what. I'll never leave you behind again."

He sighs, hardly more than an exhale of breath. Then he snorts – accepting the apology for what it is. "That's what I get, falling for you. A lifetime of running, ducking, shooting, worrying..."

Their fingers curl together. If it were up to her, she'd never let go again.

For a long time, there's nothing but the sounds of medical machines and the gentle pressure of Garrus's fingers against her hand. It still hasn't really sunk in, that she can have this. That there's a future, and they'll both be part of it. It doesn't make sense - how they won, how anyone survived after she failed to activate the Crucible-

"Vigil," she says suddenly, sitting up abruptly. Pain lances through her side, but she ignores it. 

"What?"

"The Prothean VI. I heard a voice, right before-" Right before everything went sideways and she woke up somewhere else three weeks later. "It was the Prothean VI, like the ones on Ilos and Thessia. Vigil and Victory. The same voice."

"Shepard, relax," says Garrus, his tone placating. He squeezes her hand. "You got banged-up pretty bad. If you could still get scars with all those Cerberus implants, they'd be even worse than mine. We can talk about this later-"

She ignores him and presses on. "The Catalyst wasn't the Citadel. It was the Reaper intelligence. The one the Leviathans told me about. Their 'solution'. But then I heard the Prothean VI, right before..."

"You can debrief after the doctors check you out- wait. Hang on. You _talked_ to the Reaper intelligence?"

"When I tried to turn on the Crucible, it gave me three choices. Merge all organic and synthetic life to end the conflict, take control of the Reapers, or destroy them, but it would have taken out the geth and EDI too. And I couldn't stomach that. I didn't have the guts. So I didn't choose. I decided we go down fighting instead."

"Shepard-"

There's a bitter taste in her mouth that won't go away. "They give me three choices to end the war, and what do I do? I decide to let the Reapers win. I was a coward, Garrus. I-"

"You're a lot of things, but never a coward."

"You can't just let this go-"

"I was there on Noveria, Shepard," he says, interrupting before she can explain to him exactly how bad she screwed up, exactly how much she was willing to gamble on her sense of pride. "You remember? The rachni queen in that tank, begging you to give her people a second chance. Promising you she'd be peaceful."

"... Yeah. I don't see what it has to do with anything, but I remember."

"And you let her go. You could have killed her and ended it right then and there, but you did it anyway."

"What's your point?"

"Well, how sure were you sure that she wouldn't want revenge? Did you _know_ she'd be peaceful, in the end?"

"No, but-"

"And when you let Mordin cure the genophage? You're _sure_ the krogan aren't just going to try to overrun the galaxy again? Even after Wrex and Eve are gone?"

"They deserved-"

"Let me finish. I was right beside you on Rannoch when you told Legion to upload the Reaper code to the geth. Tali _begged_ you to stop it. One of your best friends begged you to save her people, but did you listen? No, you told Legion to keep going."

"I knew they'd listen to her."

"Did you really? After all the crap they put us through?"

"Yes. ... No. I don't know. Maybe not. But it's still different. It's-"

"It's not different. You risked the entire quarian species on a hunch that you could save everyone. It was crazy. I'd be the first person to tell you that. But you ended that war. Three centuries and it turns out all they needed was someone to shout at them loud enough. And this time? This time, you saved us all."

"Damn it, Vakarian, I was ready to kill everyone. To let the Reapers kill everyone, but what's the difference? Every single person in the whole damn galaxy, because I couldn't make the hard choice."

"It was lying to you," comes a quiet voice from the doorway. Shepard sits up as much as she can and meets Liara's eyes as she comes into the hospital room. She takes a seat beside Garrus, her hand coming to rest over Shepard's arm. "The Reaper intelligence was lying to you. If you had made the choice to destroy all synthetic life, then the geth and EDI would have perished for nothing. We know now that the Crucible was only made to weaken the Reapers. To give the Protheans – and all of the other species who came before – a fighting chance. I'd need more data to be certain, but it seems that at some point in a past cycle, the Reapers took over the Catalyst and managed to corrupt it just enough to alter part of its core programming. Apparently, your actions made an impression. In the end, it relinquished its control. The Crucible functioned as intended."

"Liara," Shepard breathes, so relieved to see another familiar face that she forgets to feel guilty for a moment. Then it comes roaring back, because it hits her suddenly: "... The others. Who- who didn't-?"

“Everyone on the Normandy is safe. James was injured, but he's recovering. You bore the brunt of it," Liara says gently, her hand coming to rest on Shepard’s shoulder.

Infinitely relieved but only somewhat appeased, Shepard starts to lie back down. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough. Garrus is right. You saved us all, Shepard. That is what matters."

"I didn't know it was lying, Liara. I risked too much."

"So what?" says Garrus sharply. 

"Don’t you start-"

"No, don’t _you_ start. I’m saying it whether you like it or not: so what? You were always the one who wanted to _find another way_. Put me up there, and when it came right down to it, I would have destroyed half the galaxy as collateral damage. That's why they put you in charge. So there'd be something left to rebuild when it was over."

"I can't just pretend it didn’t happen. Even if this part gets left out of the history books, I'll know what I did."

"So don’t pretend," he says, with that same conviction he's always brought to her cause, from the very beginning. "Get better and get back on your feet and then go out there and do something about it."

She hates it. She hates it so much that for a second, she wants to tell him to walk away. Walk away and leave her to stew in her regrets. The annoying thing is, he won’t listen. He never did learn to obey a bad order.

The really annoying thing is, he's right. If her impulsiveness saved the galaxy, she'll just have to learn to live with it.

"Always were a stubborn bastard," she mutters.

"That’s why you love me."

"That’s why I love you."

\---

As soon as word gets out that she's finally awake, they all start to visit, a neverending stream of friends and well-wishers and Alliance brass who want to be the first to score a meeting with the great Commander Shepard, hero of the Reaper war. Garrus manages to keep most of them away, but even Archangel occasionally lets something slip. Especially when he's exhausted and still recovering from injuries that should have killed him.

Hackett pins a medal on her chest practically the moment she manages to get herself out of bed and onto her (unsteady) feet. The Alliance promotes her. Everyone wants an interview. Everyone wants to tell her that it's an _honor_ just to shake her hand.

Javik's tight grip and respectful nod is the first congratulations she can bear to accept. At least he understands the weight of it. The rest of them – she can barely stand it. It's not just that she doesn't deserve it, that she gambled trillions of lives on something that wasn't even solid enough to be called a real hunch – it's that she never joined the Alliance or became a Spectre for the attention. It's the work she loves, not the title, and right now she's trapped in a hospital room, immobile and frustrated and – whenever the lingering regrets about her decision with the Catalyst fade – bored out of her mind.

At least she can always count on her crew. Joker and EDI take it in turns to try to distract her, when they're not working on repairing the Normandy. Ashley drops by and leaves her some books to read. Vega limps in and shows her how his new scar cuts right across his N7 tattoo. Tali transfers thirty-five hours' worth of _Fleet and Flotilla_ vids to her and begs her to watch them all. Grunt sneaks in some ryncol, which Garrus promptly confiscates before she can get her hands on it. Miranda quietly sends highly classified updates on the status of the remaining front lines, for which Shepard is infinitely grateful.

And then there's Wrex:

"Shepard!!!"

"Wrex, she’s still recovering, don’t-" But Garrus is a second too late to stop Wrex from clapping down on her shoulder, hard. Thankfully it's her good arm.

"Wrex," she replies warmly. When he lets go, her arm goes out to clasp his. "You made it."

"Takes more than a few Reapers to kill this old krogan. You still lying around waiting for the rest of us to clean up your mess?"

"You know me."

"That's what redundant organs are for. Getting you back on your feet after you take a beating."

"Yeah," she says wryly, "I’ll talk to the doctor about getting an extra liver put in."

"So." Wrex walks over to the sorry excuse for a window that overlooks a particularly ruined section of the city. "Slap some new paint on there and it'll be like it never happened. Looks like your people won't be needing a new planet after all."

"Thanks to your people," she says, and means it without reservation. There are some debts she's never going to be able to repay, even if she lives as long as an asari.

"An army of krogan goes a long way, but don’t sell yourself short. You might have helped, a little."

"She pressed a button,” Garrus says helpfully. "A really, really big button..."

She snorts and knocks his arm with her elbow. He knocks right back - but gently, like he's still afraid she might keel over if he pushes too hard. He's probably not wrong.

"And now we can all go home," says Wrex. He sounds thoughtful. There was a time in Shepard's life when she would have considered that strange, coming from a krogan. "What about you, Shepard? Any plans?"

"I don't know. I'm still a Spectre. I bet the Council has a grocery list of jobs they want me to do as soon as I'm allowed to leave this room."

"And after you saved their asses."

"You know how it is, Wrex. Duty calls."

"Well, when the Council and the Alliance finally spit you out, you should stop by Tuchanka. We could use a woman like you."

"To do the heavy lifting for you?"

"Ha."

She holds out her arm again and he grasps it warmly. "We'll visit. I promise. Until then, try not to start any wars. I think everyone could use a bit of a rest."

"No promises."

" _Wrex._ "

"Yeah, yeah."

\---

Rebuilding, the galaxy collectively begins to discover, can be nearly as hard as winning the war.

Reports make their way to Shepard's hospital room, filtered through the medical staff's gossip and the intermittent news transmissions that occasionally get through. Dozens of worlds have been ravaged by the Reapers. Billions of people are dead, and billions more are missing. Some of the relays are damaged, leaving their systems totally inaccessible. Entire political systems have collapsed. The economy is a mess. It will be centuries before the galaxy recovers fully.

It's worth it. Because there are the bright spots, too. After communications are finally back up again – more or less – she learns that casualties in the final push weren't as high as initially projected. Earth is starting to recover. Cities are being rebuilt. They're even piecing the damaged parts of the Citadel back together. She's relieved to find out that the majority of the civilian population survived. Miraculously, the Council made it out – courtesy of nearly the entirety of the C-Sec force stationed on the Presidium, who didn't.

And all the while Shepard puts herself back together. Her wounds start to fade away into scars and then the Cerberus implants start to take care of those, too. Her bruises heal. The doctors fit her broken arm into a sling, and she finds it's starting to knit itself back together, even if it will be months or years before she's at a hundred percent again. They let her go back to the Normandy, but only if she promises not to join any ground teams for another couple of months. She _hates_ being sidelined while the rest of the galaxy is still fighting hold-outs, but it is what it is.

There are some kinds of wounds that take longer to heal.

"One person, I know how to mourn," Garrus tells her, one afternoon when they're alone on the CIC while the Normandy continues to undergo repairs and retrofits. "You lose someone – you grieve, you remember, you move on. You lose ten good men – it's bigger, but in the end it's the same thing. A hundred people, a thousand – that's a tragedy. Build a memorial, vow to make their loss worth it. But how do you mourn a million people? A billion? What about all those other civilizations the Reapers wiped out? How do you even start?"

"I don't know, Garrus." She leans back against the railing near the galaxy map, brows knitting together as she considers it. "Maybe you mourn by building nightclubs. And libraries. And universities, and shopping malls, and casinos and arcades and restaurants. Maybe we laugh harder than we ever have and then we all die old in our beds. Maybe the only thing we can do is tell the Reapers to go fuck themselves."

"Be fair. I don't think it was the Reapers who went and destroyed that restaurant, Shepard. That was all you."

"Watch it, Vakarian."

They laugh until they're breathless, because it's not that funny but laughter makes them feel alive, and no amount of solemn mourning is ever going to wipe away the horrors they've seen. If she's learned anything from the Reapers, it's that sometimes all you can do is throw back your head and laugh in the face of your nightmares. 

"Thanks, Shepard," he says finally, when they're quiet again. "For listening. For always being there when I needed someone. And for defeating the Reapers. I know everyone says it, but I haven't yet. Death by Reaper blast would have been a bad way to go, and I would have missed out on a _lifetime_ of making fun of your driving and bad aim. So... thanks."

"It was nothing. I could have won the war in my sleep," she says dryly. "Anything else I can do for you? Another impossible feat, maybe?"

"I can think of a few things," he says, and reaches for her waist. She obliges.

\---

Then there are the rough patches:

They add Anderson’s name to the wall, the last one they'll ever have to. The private memorial - just the crew of the Normandy, Kahlee Sanders, and a few of Anderson's old friends - is more than enough for Shepard. But the public expects fanfare, and she's _Shepard_ , so – with Garrus's help – she pulls on her dress uniform and gives this war one last piece of herself. 

(The Alliance suggests moving the wall to a more permanent location on Earth. Shepard kindly suggests they go screw themselves.)

Standing in front of the crowd in the ruined London square is harder than she thought it would be, and she never thought it would be easy.

"Admiral Anderson – David – was... with me, at the end," she begins, faltering. These words matter. They aren't the ones she used to galvanize the entire galaxy into winning an unwinnable war, but they matter. "He never gave up. Never faltered, even for a second. He stayed on Earth and fought to the bitter end. We all owe our lives to him. But his greatest achievement wasn't his actions in the war – it was the faith he put in the men and women who served under him. He believed in me when no one else did. He always had my back. I only wish I'd had the chance to thank him for it properly."

Her hands are the ones that lay the final stone on the statue. It's fitting, given that her hands were the ones holding the gun.

She steels herself in a way that's not too different from pulling on armor before battle, when she walks away from the memorial and into the waiting crowd. She's not used to this yet. She's not sure she'll ever be used to it. Before the war, she was famous, sure. The first human Spectre, the hero of the Citadel – a lot of people knew her name. But now...

"Admiral Shepard, can I just say how _honored_ we are to meet you-"

"Can I shake your hand?"

"You saved us, you saved all of us-"

"I can't believe it's Shepard, here, like, the real thing-"

"Admiral, can I get an interview?"

"Can we get a photo?"

"Holy shit-"

"No way, that’s _Shepard_ -"

They speak her name like it's a prayer, and the best she can manage to give back is a tight smile or a sharp nod. She can accept that the galaxy needs a hero right now. She can even accept that she needs to be that hero, but she can't forget the parts that are going to be left out of the vids and the history books. The choices she made. The mistakes. The necessary sacrifices. The lives she failed to save. The fact that it was always her finger on the trigger, sometimes figuratively, sometimes literally. Anderson used to remind her to _feel_ that weight on her shoulders - the weight of responsibility for the men and women under her command and the people they protect. Now her only reminder is the list of names engraved on the wall and branded into her conscience. No matter what the rest of the galaxy turns her into, those names are never going to let her forget.

\---

"So," Garrus says, three weeks after Anderson's memorial and completely out of the blue.

"So," she replies, eyebrows raised as far as they'll go.

They haven't had the retiring-somewhere-tropical-and-living-off-the-vid-royalties talk yet. In fact, they haven't talked about much of anything beyond the immediate: their still-healing injuries, the status of the Normandy, Anderson's funeral, getting their allies back to their homeworlds, cleaning up the Citadel, restoring order, continuity of government. Things that she never in a million years imagined she would be doing, because she's the last person who should ever have become involved in politics. 

(Case in point:

"I understand that, Admiral Shepard, but-"

"Respectfully, Councilor, I'm not sure you do."

"The krogan need to be leashed. You may have made the right decision in exchange for their help against the Reapers, but the war is over now. They could cripple the galaxy within two generations. Might I suggest-"

" _Enough_ ," Shepard snaps. "The krogan bled and died for this galaxy as much as anyone else. They deserve every concession they've asked for and more. You know it, I know it. I'm not having this conversation again. You know where I stand. You need someone to kiss your ass and jump when you say how high? Find another errand girl.")

"So," she repeats, when Garrus just waits. "There something you want to talk about?"

"Your arm's getting better," he says, gesturing to her. "Just wondering what crazy thing you want us to do next. We've already saved the galaxy, cured the genophage, given the quarians back their homeworld, survived a few suicide missions... You know I'll follow you anywhere, but if it's all the same to you, could we dial it down a bit this time? Just run a few rescue missions and leave the impossible stuff to someone else for a change?"

"Well, we can certainly try," she says dubiously. "The way things usually shake out, expect to be battling even bigger Reapers inside of a month."

"Looking forward to it. After that, though, I want a vacation."

"We'll see."

\---

The thing is, neither of them know how to stay put.

She's received a dozen messages inviting her to join a project, take a prestigious title, retire somewhere warm and peaceful (or cold and violent). Most of them she discards without even reading. A few she considers. Wrex informs her that there's a place for her in Clan Urdnot. Tali sends a message on behalf of the other quarian admirals, letting her know she's been made a citizen of Rannoch (apparently whether she likes it or not). The quarian invitation is accompanied by a baffling yet oddly touching message from the geth prime platoon she liberated inviting her to "integrate into the geth consensus".

The only one she rejects outright comes from the very people whose (in Joker's opinion, undeserving) asses she pulled straight out of the fire:

"I've been cleared to officially offer you a permanent position on Earth-" Hackett begins, his holographic outline flickering on its pedestal.

She holds up her hand. "I’m going to have to stop you there, sir."

"Shepard, this is a joint recommendation from the entire Alliance Parliament-"

"With all due respect, you and I both know there are more important things to be done."

"Are you sure about this? You're stepping on some awfully large toes here."

"I've stepped on larger ones."

"True enough, Admiral. True enough."

Garrus gets his fair share, too. The Hierarchy extends a formal promotion offer that, when he opens the message, causes his mandibles to flare out and stay flared out for a full fifteen seconds. Shepard is about to ask him if they're stuck that way when he suddenly snaps back to attention and starts typing out his refusal. The turian embassy asks if he's looking for a job; he makes a face like he'd rather be back on Omega pinned down by hundreds of mercs.

So they don't retire, not exactly. They do move a few more of their things into Anderson's old apartment on the Citadel, once the windows are repaired, the power is restored, and the shards of glass are swept off the floor. Then they get to work making themselves busy.

Shepard turns a wall into a display case for her model ship collection. Her fish and her hamster find a new, permanent, much safer home than the Normandy. She gathers up all the unfinished interview material on Anderson's datapads and sends it to Al-Jilani to edit into a biography.

(They ask her for interviews, too, but she's not ready to give them yet. Too many raw wounds. Too many faces haunting her dreams.)

Garrus remodels one of the closets into his own personal armory. She'd tell him it's pointless now that the war is over, but there are still targets painted on both their backs. They've made a few enemies over the years. Besides, she gets it – that itch to hold a gun in her hands, just to know it's there.

Even on good days, she looks in the mirror and barely recognizes herself. The broad strokes are all there – the lines of her face, the shape of her eyes, the color of her skin. But she used to have a scar that slashed down across her eyebrow, courtesy of Cerberus's sick experiment on Akuze, and she wore it like a badge. A reminder that she was still standing, despite the odds. Now her skin is bare. Even the Reaper war is slowly being erased. Her implants heal the damage too fast and too thoroughly to leave permanent scars.

Cerberus giveth and Cerberus taketh away, she thinks bitterly, but not without some dark amusement.

One of the worst parts is that people are naming their babies after her. It's jarring the first time she gets a message letting her know that somewhere out there, there's a tiny salarian named Shepard. A slew of Janes are born on Earth. She’s infinitely relieved when the first line of Wrex's message informs her that he's named his firstborn (his firstborn _daughter_ ) Urdnot Mordin – and then dismayed when she reads further and finds that his second- and third-born (sons) are Shepard and Jane. 

But in the end, fame is a small price to pay, and there are worse things in the galaxy than giving her name to the children of Tuchanka. She'll learn to live with the way it makes her cringe.

(Jacob does talk Brynn out of it. Shepard's grateful.)

\---

One day she comes home to find a blinking message waiting on her console, informing her that there are reports of survivors on Bekenstein and asking for her help locating and evacuating them. She wastes exactly no time contacting Joker and asking him to get the crew together.

"Report to the Normandy," she tells Garrus, the moment he walks through the door. "We’re heading out."

"I thought you'd never ask." He doesn’t even miss a beat as he goes to grab his gear. Less than sixty seconds and he's joining her at the door, ready to deploy. Old habits die hard - especially old habits ingrained by turian military training, C-Sec, Omega, and the Reapers.

"Someone's excited," she says, nodding at the rifle in his hands.

"Are you sure about this, Shepard? We could still retire to the geth consensus..."

"I don't think you were invited, Vakarian."

There is no well-adjusted when half the galaxy is in ruins. They make do anyway.

\---

They find survivors. Then they move on and find more. Their mission takes them to ruined cities on empty planets, looking for anyone who might have weathered the war in hiding, and to backwater systems where they help the rebuilding efforts in whatever way they can. A month passes. Two. Three. Six. They stop trying to save the whole galaxy, because there’s always going to be something and Shepard is _tired_.

Sometimes they save a few people, though. And that's enough.

\---

Seven months in, she and Garrus find themselves holed up in the shell of a spaceport on Illium's northern continent, battling the sticky, humid heat and a rainstorm the likes of which she hasn't seen since Pragia. They're the first boots on the ground in this area since the war; relief crews still haven't made it this far from Nos Astra. The spaceport's back-up generator is online, but with only emergency power, most of the light comes from the flashes of thunder visible through the windows – cracked, but somehow still holding together through Reapers and thunderstorms and whatever else the galaxy can throw at them. It's almost a metaphor.

"Looks like we're in it for the long haul," says Garrus, as he collapses against the low wall near the only functioning air conditioning unit left in the entire spaceport. "Comms are down. Got through to Cortez for a second just before they went – he says he'll pick us up as soon as there's a break in the storm, but for now... how did Vega put it? 'No dice'?"

"We've seen worse," she replies, which is relatively true – for the first six hours, at least. But when the wind is howling over them so loud they can barely hear themselves think, and the windows are straining and straining under its force, and the flashes of lightning are blindingly bright - well, it's starting to seem debatable.

Coming back from checking the perimeter for the ninth time, Garrus slumps down against the wall beside her and sighs. "Not the most elegant way to go," he says. "Shepard and Vakarian, saviors of the galaxy, leaders of their people, partners in crime – taken out by the weather."

"Not the worst way, though."

"Oh? Entertain me. What would be worse?"

"Grabbed by a banshee. Crushed by a thresher maw. Suffocating in space."

"Not all of us have your wealth of near-death experience."

"Rocket to the face."

"Now you're just being cruel."

"Turnabout's fair play."

"My people have one like that too."

They're quiet for awhile, huddling together. His arm comes to rest around her waist, his thumb idly stroking her side. The sound of the wind whistling and roaring through the shells of skyscrapers outside punctuates the silence, accompanied by the occasional rumbling of something collapsing. It's a scene that's too familiar. Too many worlds, too many cities, too many people, and nothing they can do to change it.

"So, Vakarian, I was thinking," Shepard says conversationally, like this is a normal thing to discuss while thunder is literally shaking the ground beneath them, "About that tropical retirement..."

"Now? You want to have this talk now?"

"Not like we have anything else to do."

He shakes his head and laughs. "Just like old times."

She leans her head back against the wall behind her, then slowly turns it to the side so she can watch him. It's true. It's just like old times. The universe has shifted on its axis, and he's still right there, her best friend weathering the storm with her and watching her six. "I have to ask, Garrus: is that what you want? Retiring on some tropical beach somewhere? Be honest."

He takes a moment to consider. Then he lowers his head and chuckles, sounding almost resigned. "It’s never a tropical beach, with you. Unless we're fighting our way across it."

"I said be honest."

"Shepard," he says, as if offended, but she knows better.

"I know you'd follow me anywhere. That's not what I was asking. I was asking what _you_ want. We always talk about me. The whole damn war, you just kept asking how I was doing. Holding me up when I stumbled. It's your turn."

"I already had my turn. After Omega, after Sidonis... I was drowning, Shepard, and you pulled me out. Never gave me shit for it, either. Just let me work it out in my own time. You stopped me from making a choice I would have regretted, set my back on my feet, and then gave me a reason to keep fighting. After all that... I figured you could use a shoulder to lean on while you waged the war to end all wars."

Her hand finds his and she slots their fingers together. She grips lightly, solid and grateful. "Your shoulder saved me a lot of pain, Garrus. I'll never forget that. You're still not off the hook with this talk, though. What do you want? Where do we go from here?"

"What do I want? That's easy," he says, soft and flippant in his certainty. "You're what I want. On a beach, in this storm, running straight at a Reaper. I don't care. Sure, I could use a vacation here and there, but I'm happy right where I am. The real question is, what do you want? Because I don't think this is it, Shepard. Spending the rest of your life cleaning up other people's messes."

She considers it quietly for awhile. Turns it around and around in her head while she holds his hand, her thumb tracing the space between two of his three fingers. "... You know what I was thinking, back on Earth? Right before that final push for the beam."

"I'm not sure I ever know what you're thinking, Shepard. If I did, I might be able to avoid some of these disasters you drag me into. At the very least, I'd prepare myself better. Wear thicker armor."

"Ha. Funny."

"You’re welcome. You were saying... right before the final push?"

"Let's be honest here. We both knew the score, and neither of us thought we were walking away at the end of it. Hell, when we started this thing, right before we hit the Omega-4 relay – it wasn't because we thought we'd have long lives to spend together. I guess I just wanted to give you whatever I had. My life, whatever's left of it, Garrus, it's always yours. That was true then and it's true now."

His only response is to lean in close and touch his forehead to hers. She reaches up to lay a hand against his mandible, closing her eyes for a moment.

"You know, before all this – I mean, way back, before Akuze and Saren and the Collectors and the Reapers... I just wanted to see the stars," she says softly. "Everyone thinks I joined up because I wanted to be like my mom, but the truth is, I'd look out the window at that endless black and think... imagine what's out there. Imagine what's waiting to be found."

"Monsters in the dark," he says grimly.

"Yeah. Monsters in the dark. But also friends. Mysteries. Some beautiful scenery, in between all the shooting and explosions. I even went and found myself a boyfriend."

He snorts. "Jane Shepard, the great human explorer."

She can't help smiling back, but hers is wistful. "Don't you ever want to just... take the Normandy and go? Not to save everyone from extinction, just to... see. Think of what we can do without the Reapers holding us back. Hundreds of billions of suns in our galaxy, and we've seen less than one percent."

"Hm. When you put it that way... yeah. Yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing what’s out there. Doing something other than fighting for our lives all the time."

"Besides, if there is something bigger than the Reapers lurking in the dark out there, I'd sure like to find it before it finds us. So maybe after this mess is over. When things are more stable. We could just... go."

"I'm with you. Until the end." He says it with the conviction of absolute, unerring loyalty. She doesn't doubt for a second that he means it.

But she leans over, falling against his side while she laughs warmly and shakes her head. "Garrus Vakarian, our end is going to be sitting on a tropical beach, old and aching with cold drinks in our hands and as many tiny umbrellas as a former Spectre can requisition. Before we retire and go soft, though, let's just... try to have some fun for a change?"

"The day you and I go soft is the day hanar grow spines."

"You know what I meant."

"Do I?"

They're still curled up together and trading banter when the shuttle picks them up, two hours later. Her heart is light with something she can't even begin to describe.

\---

She talks to Cortez and they start putting in orders, here and there, whenever they can afford it. Supplies for a long journey, more retrofits for the Normandy, crew rosters. In the meantime, the Council presses Shepard into a diplomatic mission, which mostly means visiting new allies and reassuring them that their requests are still under consideration and they'll reach a decision sometime in the next century.

("Just like old times," says Garrus, and Shepard shakes her head. But they take the mission anyway because, as Joker puts it, the Normandy gets "antsy" if she stays in port for too long. EDI says she's happy anywhere, but doesn't protest when they're pulling out of the docking bay.)

First order on the agenda: check in on some old friends.

\---

Tuchanka is a furious and chaotic _construction site_. The whole planet seems to be buzzing with activity, a million and one radio transmissions flying in every direction. Cortez has to circle around twice before he can get anyone to send him a landing vector. They set down on a plateau above a city that's half ruins, half scaffolding, and all movement. A familiar face is already trundling across the landing zone with arms spread wide before Shepard's boots even hit the ground.

"Shepard!"

"Wrex." She folds her arms over her chest and holds his gaze for about five seconds. Then they're both breaking out into grins, laughing, clapping each other on the shoulder in an awkward but friendly hug. "It's good to see you," she says, and means it. A year of listening to politicians squabble and the krogan are a sight for sore eyes. At least they drag their problems out in the open to solve them. If she never has to wheedle anything out of an asari again, it'll be too soon.

Wrex leads her to a tent with an open side overlooking the city. Bakara is already there, waiting for them.

"It's good to see you, Admiral," she says, inclining her head respectfully. "Tuchanka welcomes you home."

"Good to see you, too. I see you've both been busy."

Wrex spreads his arms wide over the vista below. "Like what you see?"

"Never pegged you for an urban planner."

"Hah. The krogan are building again, Shepard. Thanks to you and that damn salarian."

"Speaking of," Shepard says, nodding at the knee-high child tugging on Bakara's robe.

"What, her?" Wrex scoffs. "Yeah, yeah, we named her after the bastard. 'Urdnot Mordin'. Pah."

"You know what the salarians think of him."

"You think I care what salarians think about anything?"

Shepard barks out a laugh, earning her a nod of approval. Then she leans back, thoughtful. "Maybe... someday, when all the dust settles, they'll see what he did. As long as you keep your end of the bargain," she adds sternly.

"I know, I know. No rampaging hordes of krogan. Ruin all my fun."

" _Wrex._ "

"Shepard. Don't insult me. You know I won't sacrifice everything we both worked for. Besides, if I tried, she'd throw me out in the wastes and let the threshers tear me to pieces." He jerks his hand in Bakara's direction. "No krogan rebellions from me."

"But would it kill you not to joke about it?" While she's shaking her head, Shepard feels something pulling at her wrist and glances down to find two large, curious yellow eyes peering up at her. She kneels down, smiling right through the tightness that constricts her throat, and sets her hand over the girl's head. "Hi there. It's nice to finally meet you. You've got a big name to live up to, but I think you're going to do just fine."

"She’s too young to be talking just yet," says Bakara, as she comes to scoop the child up into her arms. "Give her another year and she'll be telling you all about her mother's trials and her father's adventures."

"Give her twenty and she'll be telling you about her own," Wrex says.

(Years later, when Urdnot Mordin tells Shepard that she wants to be an architect when she grows up, Shepard's chest aches with what she can only describe as a fierce sort of pride.

It only grows when Urdnot Jane comes bowling into the room to show Shepard his brand new Me-22 Eviscerator shotgun.)

Wrex waves them over to a makeshift table set up in the center of his makeshift headquarters. He bends down and pulls out two bottles and four glasses, then drops them down unceremoniously. "Have a drink with us. We even have some of that turian stuff left over from the war."

Garrus shakes his head. "You guys go ahead. I think I'll sit this one out."

A grin spreads across Shepard’s face. "What's the matter, afraid I might outdrink you?"

"I just like my insides to be intact."

Wrex pours three shots of some kind of bright green liquid and then one that's a dark blue. Shepard and Bakara takes theirs; Garrus pushes his away and watches her while his mandibles tremble with either amusement or concern. Maybe both. She grins as she holds up her drink.

"To that salarian bastard, may he rest in peace," says Wrex. They down the shots together. Even the smell is enough to make her head spin. She feels the rough burn all the way down to her toes. It's... bracing.

Wrex gets up for a moment to listen to something over his comms. Then his mouth splits into a massive grin. "There were reports of a thresher maw in the southern ruins this morning. You coming, Shepard?"

"Hell yes," she says.

"And the turian?"

"The turian has a name, Wrex," Garrus reminds him. "And no, I think I'll skip this near-death experience. Come over here, Mordin, and I'll tell you about the time your aunt Shepard took on an entire army of Blue Suns mercenaries by herself with nothing but biotics and her fists. Oh, and Wrex, bring my girlfriend back alive."

"Do my best," says Wrex, "But no promises. Things can get messy out there in the flats."

"Shepard, I would appreciate it if you bring my clan chief back alive," says Bakara pointedly, "As he has children to look after."

"I'll do my best," she says, while she pulls out her gun and plasters her very best shit-eating grin across her face.

\---

The weight on her shoulders begins to ease. Laughter comes easier, sounds freer. The galaxy finds some kind of routine in the chaos, starts to take comfort in normalcy again. People stop going silent with awe every time she walks into a room.

She still looks in the mirror and sees the blank canvas that Cerberus made of her skin, but at night Garrus's hands trace over her body, mapping out her invisible scars, all the places the war should have touched her, and she _sighs_ – giving up, giving in, giving herself over to the person who knows her best. 

His scars are more visible: the ones Omega splashed across his face, the ones London burned into his side. He always jokes that they drive her wild; she always laughs. It’s not too far from the truth. If pain is a reminder, like Anderson always said, then scars are history. And this is their history: Shepard and Vakarian and all the impossible odds the universe can throw at them. His scars don’t drive her wild. They keep her grounded.

\---

"Are you sure we shouldn't call ahead?" she asks doubtfully.

"And ruin the surprise?"

"Should your family really be surprised to meet me?"

"Relax, Shepard," he says gently. "I gave them a call before we hit the relay. They know we're coming. Solana's meeting us at the docking bay."

Despite Garrus's best efforts at reassurance, Shepard is still bordering on proverbially chewing her fingernails when she walks out of the shuttle and onto the surface of her boyfriend's planet for the first time in her life. It's not that she thinks his family won't like her. She's the hero of the Citadel and the savior of the galaxy. Those have to count as a few points in her favor. She's also faced down Reapers on foot without flinching. She's held her own against diplomats of every species, and held back from punching them even when they really, really deserve it. 

But she's never had in-laws before, and the turian woman who detaches herself from the pillar she's leaning against and approaches is exactly what Shepard would have expected. Eyes sharp like she's staring Shepard down from behind the business end of a sniper rifle, and she hasn't quite decided yet whether to pull the trigger.

"Sol, this is my- this is Shepard. Shepard, Solana Vakarian."

"Nice to meet you," Solana says, extending her hand. 

Swallowing down something awkward, Shepard takes Solana's hand and shakes it firmly, their fingers bumping clumsily against each other. She's never quite gotten the hang of shaking turian hands. "Likewise," she says.

"This way. We're taking a cab so you don't fry in the sun."

"Thanks," says Shepard wryly. As they make their way through the crowd, she looks around, taking in the unfamiliar sights and sounds. The turians have done better at rebuilding than anyone else they've visited. Even from the air, it's next to impossible to tell that Cipritine was ravaged in the war. Everything is clean, solid, austere, and unyielding.

"You know," Solana says, once they've all piled in together and pulled out of the spaceport, "Garrus tells all kinds of stories about you."

"Most of them good...?"

"Most of them," Solana replies, with that same wicked-grin undertone to her voice that Garrus gets sometimes. 

Shepard can't help it – she grins back. And begins to relax. "So that’s how it's gonna be, huh."

"Sol, have I ever told you about the time we met Shepard's clone?"

"Oh, here we go," Shepard mutters under her breath, but it's a halfhearted protest at best. Not that the clone thing doesn't weird her out in all the wrong ways – but that brief, crazy respite from the war is one of her fondest memories. She can't begrudge him the opportunity to reminisce.

"No, you haven't,” Solana replies, glancing over at Garrus.

Five minutes later he's still neck-deep in a colorful but largely accurate retelling, and Shepard is chuckling even while she rolls her eyes:

"... So then I get a call: Shepard fell through a fish tank and destroyed that sushi place on the Silversun Strip, Ryuusei? And I take off on foot because she's hopeless without her squad-”

"Garrus," she warns flatly, without much bite.

"-I find her in this car dealership, Cision Motors, I think it was called. She's soaking wet, wearing this little black dress, smells like fish-"

" _Vakarian_."

"What?" he and Solana reply in unison. That's right about when she starts to realize she's doomed. There are two of them.

"So there we were fighting through a car dealership, and Wrex asks if we have an escape plan. And then Shepard says 'I'm a professional'."

"Hey," she protests. "I did have a plan."

"A plan that entailed being rescued by your boyfriend, an 800-pound krogan, and your shuttle pilot?"

"That's a plan."

"Shepard, please. I spent two years laying traps on Omega. That wasn't a plan, it was dumb luck."

“It worked, didn’t it?”

"The story of your life."

" _Our_ life, Vakarian. Our life."

"Who knew," says Solana, laughing to herself, "All this time he spent looking for the right partner, and she was just a species away."

The rest of the ride dissolves into casual, affectionate bickering. Somehow, Shepard thinks she and Garrus's family are going to get along just fine.

\---

Rannoch was beautiful the first time Shepard set foot on it, when the wind whistled through barren rock formations and the waves lapped at empty beaches. It's even more beautiful when its spaceport is crowded and bustling, quarians and geth intermingling, filled with sounds of laughter and voices and robotic clicking. If ever there was a hard-earned view, she's looking at it right now.

She leans back against the railing on her balcony and breathes in the scent of fresh air. She turns to Tali wearing a grin so wide that it aches. "So. You said something once about the wounds being too fresh?"

"It's... amazing, Shepard. My people and the geth, working together. Becoming _one_ people. Even after we made peace, I never thought..."

"Funny how things turn out the way you least expect."

"You made this possible. You gave us a chance to be... this," says Tali, gesturing with her hand across the vista of city and arid desert horizon and purple sky in the distance.

"I didn't do this, Tali. Or should I say Admiral Tali'Zorah vas Rannoch?"

"Please don't remind me," she groans.

"It looks good on you," Shepard says gently. "Leadership. Confidence. Your feet on solid ground."

"It looks good on you, too, Shepard. Peace, I mean. You deserve it, after everything you gave all of us. All these second chances." She reaches up with both hands and removes her mask. She's smiling brightly when she turns her face toward the deep blues and reds and pinks of a Rannoch sunset.

There are no words for a sight like that, so Shepard doesn't try to find any. She just takes it in. Maybe she won the war on a hunch, but this victory feels honest. It feels earned. 

The boy doesn't haunt her dreams anymore. She doesn't tread the ground of a dead forest consumed by ash and fire. Now she dreams of desert skies and unmasked quarians, laughing krogan children, and the faces of lost friends graced with weary smiles – and a whole galaxy stretched out beneath her feet, waiting to be discovered.

\---

The thing is, nothing's perfect.

By the time Shepard manages to requisition enough supplies for an extended deep space trip (and find someone she trusts to feed the fish in their apartment while they're out of relay range for a couple months), the Council is on its fourth round of debates about the legal status of AI, its seventh round about the admission of quarians as an associate Council race, and at least its tenth round about concessions to the krogan. She can move mountains when she needs to and she can shout until her throat goes hoarse, but she can't perform miracles. Sometimes the only way out is through. And that means letting people sort it out themselves, no matter how much she wants to headbutt her way to their senses.

So they leave the politics to the politicians and set off into the stars, to see what they can see. She breathes the longest, most satisfying sigh of relief as they pull away from their docking bay on the Citadel. Nothing like leaving all your worries behind. 

(To go find new ones, most likely, but she's always been happiest right in the thick of it. If she doesn't find at least a _few_ big, hostile things to try out some new biotic moves on, she'll be disappointed.)

Ten hours out of a freshly opened relay to an uncharted sector of space, she looks up from a datapad as EDI's voice comes over the commlink to her quarters: "Shepard, Garrus asked me to let you know that he is currently waiting for you in the starboard lounge. He also asked for you to 'dress down'."

"Thanks, EDI. Can you let him know I'm on my way?"

"Of course, Shepard."

She pulls on her hoodie and goes to find him resting his head on his hand, sipping idly at a glass of the finest turian brandy money can buy. "Let me guess," she says dryly, "Meet you at the bar?"

"You’re buying." He holds out his half-empty glass. 

"Really, Garrus? We live together. I've read your mail. I know what your salary looks like. _Advisor_ Vakarian."

" _Admiral_ Shepard, a cheapskate. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. You always did try every dirty trick you could think of to get a discount. If you want, I can offer to give the captain of this ship an endorsement... How about, we're Shepard and Vakarian, and this is our favorite bar on the Normandy."

"All right, all right. You win. I'm buying,” she says, laughing. She pours herself a drink and joins him, sliding easily onto one of the stools.

"You know, I've always liked that hoodie," he remarks. "Mind you, I like it better when I'm pulling it over your head..."

"Is that what this is?"

"I think this is a _date_ ," he says. He reaches over to brush the backs of his fingers against her cheek.

She leans into it, still chuckling. "Let's skip the dancing this time, okay?"

"You got it."

For awhile, they drink together in silence. She settles into the warm stupor of his company and her own thoughts. Distracted, she swirls her glass as she leans against her hand and watches the stars racing by outside, the sheath of light that surrounds them when they reach FTL speeds.

Garrus prods her clumsily with his elbow. "Tell me what you're thinking about."

"... That Reaper we killed on Rannoch," she says slowly, the words coming unbidden, tumbling out like the liquid sloshing and spilling down the sides of her glass.

"Yeah? What about it?" 

"About what it said, right before it died."

"We represent order, you represent chaos," he intones, in an absolutely pathetic attempt to imitate the booming, grating voice of a Reaper. "Of course, you brought it down with a hellfire of laser-guided missiles from orbit, so maybe we shouldn't be putting _too_ much stock into anything it said..."

"Sometimes I wonder if it was onto something."

"Come on, Shepard. Don't tell me you’re starting to feel guilty about the Reapers. I know you always want to find a better way, but there has to be a limit somewhere. Next you're going to start telling me we need to make peace with automated defense turrets."

She snorts. "I wouldn’t say _guilty_. Hell, give me a Reaper and another one of those target-guidance guns and I'd kill one right now. No, I mean... order and chaos. We defeated the Reapers. We all got together, one galaxy with one voice, and did the impossible. And now what are we doing? Squabbling about who gets first boots on a handful of habitable planets and what kind of restrictions we're going to put on synthetics before we let them back into Council space." She takes a sip from her glass, as if to take the edge off. "Another war's going to break out in a decade or two. Pirates are going to keep raiding Alliance colonies in the Terminus systems. Nothing's fixed. Nothing's changed. Maybe the Reapers... weren't wrong. Maybe we do represent chaos."

"Have you considered trying optimism? I hear it's all the rage these days."

"No, but that's the thing, Garrus, despite everything we've seen, all that destruction, I am optimistic. There will be wars, but we can always make peace. We'll hit roadblocks and we'll find a way around. The galaxy's a messy place. Sometimes... chaos can be a beautiful thing."

"Yeah," he says, after a moment of hesitation. "... Hm. Yeah. I remember when I was a kid, in school on Palaven, watching vids about how stars die and planets are formed. All that cosmic dust, and somehow here we are. Sharing drinks on the most advanced ship our species have ever built. I wouldn't say we're wasting our species' collective intelligence, but..."

Their shoulders bump together, easy camaraderie and affection commingling. Garrus Vakarian is a lot of things – a soldier, a vigilante, a terrible turian, her boyfriend, an incredible sniper, but above all, he's her best friend. That's one thing the Reapers never took. One thing they never could.

He holds up what's left of his brandy. "To chaos and disorder?"

"To fifty-one thousand years of it."

They drain their glasses.

**Author's Note:**

> When I read your letter, I really loved all your prompts, so I wanted to write something set after ME3 to include a few of them. Also, you mentioned wanting a happy ending of some sort for Shepard and Garrus, including an AU, so I thought it might be neat if there was some kind of charm/intimidate option to convince the Reaper intelligence that organics _can_ get along with synthetics - that way, Shepard could have an ending that isn't so bittersweet. And then this story just sort of kept growing and growing.


End file.
